#the necromancer’s marriage season

[shiroikabocha]

So, like, for The Necromancer’s Marriage Season to be inside the dream bubble river bubble with Palamades, and for him to be able to read it all, that means the contents of the book must have already been in his brain. The bubble is an expression of what he could perceive about the room in his last moments, which would include the book’s cover, but not its contents.

Two possibilities exist:

1. Palamades had already read The Necromancer’s Marriage Season before he died, possibly to make fun of it with Cam and Dulcie.

2. Palamades placed a copy of a book called The Necromancer’s Marriage Season in his dream bubble because there was a book with that title in the room where he died, but he did not know what was in it. In a fit of bored, semi-subconscious creativity, he filled in the void with what he felt the plot of a book called “The Necromancer’s Marriage Season” would be. In this case, Palamades Sextus himself is the author of The Necromancer’s Marriage Season. I think I like this one better!

Also, somebody else must have noticed this, but the heroine of tNMS has the same name that Ianthe was originally supposed to have—Abella—and she’s a too-skinny third house adept with amazing flesh necromancy skills and nobody appreciates her enough… wait, maybe Ianthe wrote tNMS and Abella is her painfully transparent self-insert MC??? Secret 3rd option!!

[mayasaura]

Following the plot of The Necromancer's Marriage Season, should "Abella's" tragically widowed love interest be (a constructed facsimile of) Harrow or Kiriona?

Seriously tho Palamedes said his battle with Ianthe took "a great deal longer" than a few seconds. How long did it take?? What was it like?

It would have been in the River, like Wake and Nonius' duel. And it would have been between two master necromancers already proficient in navigating the River. It could be anything. All bets are off.

[meat4meat]

Camilla Hect, about to absorb the entirety of The Necromancer's Marriage Season and its sequel as her soul merges with Palamedes

[maculategiraffe]

has anyone written the necromancer's marriage season yet

[procrastinationaccount]

Either a) Cytherea brought multiple trashy romance novels with her on her little expedition to Canaan or b) Dulcinea was some kind of trashy romance aficianado. Imagine if she brought along "The Necromancer's Marriage Season" specifically to trash it with Palamedes.

[rey-jake-therapist]

I know we've got long way to go and a whole lot of twists and turns to unravel narratively. But just from what we know of Galadriel and Sauron's relationship so far. I'd love your thoughts on the scene at Dol Guldur between Galadriel and 'The Necromancer' in the Hobbit from a saurondriel point of view.

Very interesting question, thank you for asking me that !

I found a Reddit thread that discussed this encounter. It wasn't in relation with ROP, except for a joke about season 1's "marriage proposal"; but I found this comment quite spot on :

"Nameless/faceless/formless" I see this as a denial/dismissal of him and his power, and probably a reference to his disembodied state. Names have power. Faces and forms have power. Accusing Sauron of having none of these is a direct attack on him personally. Not only as an insult - remember that beings such as the Maiar and the Eldar (especially one such as Galadriel) have some ability to reshape the world to their will through words. The struggle between Sauron and Galadriel was a battle of wills; akin to that between Sauron and Finrod. (Fitting, since Finrod was Galadriel's brother!) The words she speaks are a denial of everything Sauron is and represents; much like when Finrod sang of hope and beauty in opposition to the despair and oppression Sauron laid upon him with his own song."

I don't know if it was a conscious from the ROP writers, but Sauron saying, "I've had many names", and Galadriel admitting that Sauron took a "fair form" to deceive her and everyone he met sound a bit like a foreshadowing of this Hobbit scene.

In the context of ROP, it could be interpreted as Galadriel telling him that he can't deceive her this way anymore : to her, he's no one; he can't get to her anymore, because he's no more to her than an evil spirit now. If we consider the idea that he's still obsessed with her and keeps 'hoping' that she lets him in again, it was a big slap in the face... Not to mention that she chases him away with Light: he was drawn to her because of her light, wanter her by his side to benefit from it. Double slap, then.

[burlowbeanie]

Sword-marriage in TLT

Yes, Pal and Cam and Dulcie were all in a relationship. What kind of relationship? Well in our-world terms, who the hell knows. It was a guy and his bestie-bodyguard-cousin who wants nothing to do with sex and his long-distance crush who he never met who he started corresponding with when he and his bestie were 12 and she was 19; there's a whole lot of factors going on there. But by the creation of Paul, we do learn that both Cam and Pal care so deeply for Dulcie that they seem to see her as their soulmate to some extent, hoping to reunite with her upon Paul's eventual death. In HtN, Dulcie seems to indicate similar sentiments. They are a trio, not only "a romantic couple and also Cam" or "a bestie duo and also Dulcie."

One of the fascinating pieces of lore in the GtN extras that has not come up again since is the concept of a sword-marriage, "wherein a necromancer and their cavalier married to one outside party as dual spouses" (452). Mx. M. Bias, as (based on their admittedly hilarious name) a typical second house wet blanket, dismisses this as "almost certainly the invention of the fiction writer, or more likely, the pornographer" (452). It does however seem to be the closest in-world equivalent to whatever the fuck is up with that triad though, and I am inclined to believe that within the 10,000 years of this society's existence it's gotta have been a thing Somewhere at Some Time. Regardless, it's existence within the fictional realm alone leads to some interesting possibilities...

...Anyway, all that to say in this essay I will be arguing that Palamades' sequel to The Necromancer's Marriage Season scrawled on wallpaper in his river bubble was definitely a shameless self-insert work in which he worked through his grief over losing his semi-girlfriend and being separated from and unaware of the fate of his bestie who also just lost their girlfriend through the use of the sword-marriage romance novel trope. This work dealt with themes of what it means to grieve someone who you already knew was dying and the grief of being separated from those you love but was somehow also extremely sexy and would have won eighteen different romance novel awards if Camilla had allowed him to write it (it had an immense amount of smut which she refused to have her body contribute to the creation thereof) and he had managed to send it off to the houses for publication (don't think the necromancy elements would go over well in the publishing industry outside the houses).

[meluiloth]

Just saw your post for the greenwood headcannons (lemme first tell ya, I also love them to a fault, such a shame we have almost nothing on them that is cannon), and do you have any thoughts about holidays or parties they might have? We know of the Feast in The Hobbit book where Galion drinks himself unconscious lmao (iconic of him btw), but seeing as they are apparently a very happy population in general, I'd wager they have more than just that one yk

Thanks for the ask!

I think the Silvan Elves are a very celebratory people, and will take any opportunity to partake in feasting, wine, and song. There are banquets and parties often, sometimes for no occasion other than to make merry (as is seen in The Hobbit, where the Elves host parties for many nights in a row!) That being said, I do think there are also holidays of special significance throughout the year and are commemorated differently than the common feast. Birthdays, for example, are a citywide affair, as are marriages and new babies; the Elves are a very family-oriented community, where everyone pretty much knows everyone. Aside from those, I've compiled a small list of holidays the Silvan Elves would celebrate!

Among the most well-known and extravagantly celebrated holidays are the Seasonal Masques, which are festivals that take place at the height of each of the four seasons. The Elves honor the bounty of nature and the beauty of every season to the fullest, and a lot of preparation is put into these four festivals.

First is the Spring Masque, which is focused on the joy of new blossoms and blooming fruit after winter. They dress mostly in white during this festival, so as to devote their full attention to the vibrant colors around them, and all of the food is found fresh in the wild: berries, fruits, and greenery in particular. There is no meat consumed during this festival, to preserve and honor the new life in this season.

A few months later is the Summer Masque, which is held on the longest day and is a celebration of the lushness of the forest; this day is full of dancing and song to display the excitement of the wild. The outfits of this festival are quite extravagant, featuring a lot of animal and flower motifs.

When the days shorten and the forest is completely covered in the colors of fall, the Autumn Masque arrives, bringing with it a bounty of harvest, changing leaves, and preparation for colder months ahead. The colors of this festival are warm and rich, and there is plenty of hot food and aromatic spices in every dish.

Finally comes the Winter Masque, and the end of the cycle of seasons. The Elves gather inside the Elvenking's Halls, where it is warm, making this a quieter and gentler holiday illuminated with candles, starlight, and snow; the forest is sleeping, so the festivities are quieter to avoid disturbing it. Often, there is a hunt, and the costumes are very fur-based to keep warm, and fresh spiced venison and wine is served.

There is also the Feast of Starlight (or Mereth Nuin Giliath in Sindarin) which takes place in the early winter, when the trees are bare and the stars are clearest; this is the feast that is featured in The Hobbit films, and, as its name suggests, it is a commemoration of Arda's dearest creations.

However, not all of the Silvan Elf holidays are joyful. Lû-o-fuin, or Time of Darkness, is a period of mourning for the Mirkwood Elves; it is a week-long fast in honor of all the lives lost during the War of the Last Alliance. Though the rest of Middle-Earth celebrates this time for the fall of Sauron, the Silvan Elves remember it for the grief it caused to their people - they lost King Oropher and an overwhelming number of their army, and this also marks the time in their history when the Necromancer first came to Greenwood and the trees began to wither. To honor this loss, the Elves do not eat or drink for a week, and wear only ash-colored robes. On the last day of mourning, they go to the Forest River, where they make small boats out of leaves and set them floating in the water, to signify the souls of those who died returning to Faerie (Valinor).

Those are some ideas for Mirkwood Elf holidays! I hope you like them (because I spent a lot of time thinking about these and even longer looking for the right images...), and thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share this!

If you're interested in my imagining of the Silvan Elves in Mirkwood, check out my mirkwood headcanons tag! If there's a headcanon you want me to explore that I haven't already, my ask box is open!

[anghraine]

Revisiting my very old P&P fic!

So I didn't initially remember which fic had the Jane-Darcy scene, only that it was an early one, so I went to AO3 and looked at some of my very early fics to refresh my memory before realizing it was Season of Courtship all along.

I only mention this because it was a bit entertaining to re-visit my old P&P fic (despite the very uneven prose) because they were weird and often melodramatic but are still recognizably mine. Like:

Left to Follow: my first Austen fic ever and it's largely trolling. Darcy has apparently cheated on his wife, who has returned home to her father and family with her sickly baby. It's from the perspective of her father. The twist, revealed at the end, is that Darcy is actually the sickly baby and the POV character is his grandfather the earl. (This originally grew into a much longer and more meandering fic than the AO3 version but it kind of sucked, so I only cross-posted the first part.)

Sword and Sorcery: a vaguely tongue-in-cheek series of vignettes in a fantasy AU. Wickham is a vampire, Elizabeth has plant powers of some kind, Georgiana is unexpectedly a necromancer, and Darcy is an empath and has become so overconfident about his (genuinely very strong) abilities that he doesn't seriously think about why he's not picking up much from Jane (it's because she is also an empath and naturally resistant to his powers) or even bother trying to read Elizabeth properly until she rejects him.

Catalyst: a twist on the then-popular fanon of Darcy only really seeing the truth of Elizabeth's criticisms by talking about the Hunsford fight with a cousin like Colonel Fitzwilliam who advocates for Elizabeth's righteousness. In the fic, Darcy does end up talking about it with a cousin (Fitzwilliam's sister) who takes his side in such a forceful classist way that he realizes he sounded like that to Elizabeth.

Such Terms of Cordiality: a chaotic cluster of AU premises. Lady Anne and Mr Bennet used to be in love but she was persuaded away Anne Elliot-style and married Darcy's father instead (their respective children know nothing about this). Darcy and Elizabeth meet at Ramsgate the summer before the novel begins and fall in love with little complication. Jane is not in love with Bingley and struggling with the pressure to be. Lady Anne is still alive. Mr Bennet is opposed to Darcy/Elizabeth and she ends up confronting him about it. I had planned for it to be a reverse-forced marriage scenario, where Darcy and Elizabeth end up married without their canonical character growth and have to grow within marriage, but it's entirely voluntary (I never got that far).

Season of Courtship: my most popular fic even now and easily the most normal thing from that time (it does have some of the melodrama, but it's just about the canon engagement period).

The Widow: Tom Bertram falls in love with a widowed Elizabeth Darcy.

Incumbrance of Mystery: a cracky murder mystery in which Georgiana gets murdered.

Claims to Reputation: probably my personal favorite of these, but it's not quite a fair comparison because I revised it pretty comprehensively later on. It's an unfinished epistolary fic in which Lydia and Wickham's two eldest children, Bess and George, attempt to scheme and maneuver their way into fortune by exploiting their Bennet connections, confiding their true feelings and motives only in their letters to each other. Bess (the more calculating and amoral of the two) is largely successful with Collins's and Charlotte's mediocre son, while George falls genuinely in love with Elizabeth and Darcy's beautiful but extremely withdrawn and wary daughter. He, however, is hampered by the suspicion of pretty much everyone.

It's basically just this flurry of letters around the whole (double) business from everyone connected with it except Miss Darcy; you have to extrapolate what she really feels about it from the (deeply biased) perspectives we get from everyone else. There are also some references to Bess and George's younger sister, Bella, being a sort of inverted Fanny Price—she's the poor relation/niece raised at Mansfield Pemberley, but has been treated much more gently than Fanny ever was and is integrated into the family.

It was odd and challenging and fun!

[azurelunatic]

I cannot remember enough of that post about "what if The Locked Tomb was a shitty het romance" with the titles and the book covers to find it again and I needed it bc it was the closest art that did what I needed for a one-off object to hand to my partner.

but the upshot is that having failed in my tiny 2-person joke, I am plotting the photoshoot to do a serious attempt at cover art for The Necromancer's Marriage Season bc Belovedest

a) has now consumed enough of TLT to have Favorites b) Sex Pal is one of their Favorites c) would Love to cosplay Palamades at local fan events

BUT

d) minus more identifiable TLT characters like Cam or anyone in 9th house skull face, Palamades is just a geek in a grey cloak

AND

e) you just do not get Palamades without Camilla, it doesn't happen

EXCEPT

f) in that very specific section of Harrow the Ninth

ERGO

g) solo Palamades needs a copy of The Necromancer's Marriage Season and it turns out that online retailers will take art and turn it into blank books with particular covers at very reasonable rates. h) (okay, not quite as reasonable as the rates on the shirt that Pyrrha was going to give Nona, but We Live Under Capitalism)

[liesmyth]

John did not know what he was getting into when summoning the canaan house crew. Can you imagine if all of them had made it?

Pal peddling porn is the least of his problems.

Both Silas and Judith are having the worst time anyone's had ever, with Silas finding new fun and interesting ways to make the words "with all due respect" sound like an insult and Judith freezing the mood of any room she's in to a solid 0 kelvin with her moping.

Isaac keeps asking him to buy beer cause he can't go anywhere without being carded. That's fine by John because he is trying to escape Abigail who just has some questions TURN ON YOUR LOCATION COWARD SHE JUST WANTS TO TALK WHY ARE YOU RUNNING

Dulcinea wakes up with Cytherea reading The Necromancer's Marriage Season at her bedskde chair.

"So I'm immortal now."

"Indeed, darling."

"So when do I start feeling better?"

Cytherea smiles a smile that says 'I don't even care you're in pain I just want someone to understand what I'm going through here'.

"Oh, here's the kicker: You don't."

I just think if Abigail got John in a room she would NEVER let him out until he'd answered enough questions for her to write like 5 separate monographs and a dozen papers. John always wanted to talk someone's ear off but not like this

[karamazovim]

notes:

I’ve excluded fake texts that share a name with actual texts in that series/‘verse (e.g. The Neverending Sacrifice [DS9]; The Way of Kings [Stormlight]) to avoid confusion

I’ve kept it to one text from each series/‘verse (my apologies to appreciators of Worldhoppers [Murderbot], The Hive Queen and The Hegemon [Enderverse], etc.)

After much deliberation, I’ve stuck to texts that are real in-world (r.i.p. Frontline Titties of the Fifth [TLT])

[sotwk]

Fun TMI Tuesday fic question today: If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose, and why?

I appreciate you for taking the time to send me these, @eirian-houpe! <3

I hope this counts as a legitimate answer, but if we're talking fantasies here, I would LOVE for a multi-season tv series to be made for my entire "Sons of the Woodland King" saga, which I have not written in its entirely yet (I mean, it's a massive timeline), but I hope to chip at it piece by piece through both headcanons and fanfic stories.

It covers most of Thranduil's life, starting from his bachelor adventures in the the early Second Age, then his meeting, courtship, and marriage of the Elvenqueen, and ALL the way through the Third Age, during which he raises five beautiful sons and rules and grows a magnificent kingdom. But then what follows is the tragic decline in the latter part of the Third Age, when Dol Goldur rises and Thranduil suffers great loses protecting Middle-earth by defying and warring against the Necromancer.

It would make for epic, delicious, magnificent cinema, I like to think. <3

[mnstrfkr]

My incredibly important research notes on palamedes's fanfiction, since no wiki pages that i can find deem this worthy of notice:

11:54 in the audiobook (I accidentally listened to like an hour and a half while spot checking the entire 20-hour audiobook ☠️🤡)

"the necromancer's marriage season"

"a historical"

abella trine of Ida

protagonist is undesirable bc she's too skinny, too good at flesh magic, and wears her chestnut hair in a bun

suitor: spoiled swordswoman who goes to sexy parties every night, which Palamedes thinks is a noble pastime

"unspeakably sordid"

And Palamedes is so bored in the river he's writing a sequel,,,, on the wallpaper. I love tm so much for this

[fortjester]

lessons on never meeting your heroes, for the title meme? alt; to testify against yourself (from siken's war of the foxes, the full line being "To testify against yourself is an interesting thing, a sacrifice. Some people do it. Some people find money in the street, but you can't rely on it.") if the first one is nothing to you asghdss

first one is everything to me tbh (mostly bc my brain is Too Tired to come up w anything angsty enough to fit a richard siken quote rn lmao)

lessons on never meeting your heroes Set several years pre-canon – at Dulcie’s recommendation that he let loose and read some trashy novel she just finished (the Necromancer’s Marriage Season), Pal finds himself so thoroughly put out with it and it’s sincere lack of substance, that he writes a letter to the author, sparking a long-term personal correspondence between them. Told in epistolary, with short asides told from Camilla or Dulcie’s perspectives throughout the years. The letters chronicle Pal and the author’s deeply polite arguments over plot and substance of trashy romance novels; carefully worded reviews and critiques of every subsequent novel the author publishes after the Necromancer’s Marriage Season; and ends up with them so accidentally ingratiated that Pal ends up as the author’s editor.

[saveourskinship]

Thankathankathank youuuuu @akorah for the tag 🥰

Three Ships:

Dramione. Because kissing someone furiously while grumpily saying "You. It's you. It's always you but... Why does it have to be you" is my jam, bread, butter, marmalade and vegemite [marmite if you're heathen ie smutty]

Zutara. Because they make each other better. They move each other forward. Because fire. Because water. Because lightning. Because ice. Because scars. Because healing. Because because because.

Skam and Beadie. This is cheating because they are original characters I am writing. They are not even a couple but God help me am I the hell leaving space to write my own fanfiction about them. Maybe an HEA where they don't all die at the end. *shrugs*

First Ship:

In anything: Barbie and Action Man. Before I was even in school my sister and I would steal our brother's Action Man as Barbie's partner. Ken's job was Beach. Our Barbie needed a man with a plan.

In media: Sora/Kairi from Kingdom Hearts. I used to devour fanfic about them. Shout out to the one which sticks in my brain and introduced me to My Chemical Romance when Kairi got married to Squall because of something to do with Mickey being an little shitprick which I think was because of some soul signature nonsense? I can't remember and anyway Demolition Lovers was their wedding song and the bane of my mother's existence - Save's Emo Phase was born.

Last Song:

Girls Like You - The Naked and Famous (shit, this is actually a lie, but it's the last 'proper' song I listened to since I don't count the demo I'm making for my friend's satire girlpunk band she decided to create last night as a real song yet. It just has boop-boop-boops. Night Lunch can pull off songs with only doof-doofs and boom-booms. I cannot. So the demo won't be real until Sasha does the drums at least.)

Last Movie:

What A Girl Wants. Look. It's Amanda Bynes. I love Amanda Bynes. It is also Colin Firth and blue blood upper crust English vibes (done poorly, sure, but still). The last chapter of rose-petal compliments is needing all the help I can get it right now.

Currently Reading:

Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

Lesbian necromancers in space. Need there be another reason?

Currently Watching:

Jujitsu Kaisen Season Two (Gojo, my love. I salivate, I wither, I breathe so much ecstasy I lack oxygen and die.)

Taskmaster NZ (rewatch. Like, no shade to my country or anything [said under the world's largest umbrella] but fuck we're shit.)

Last Thing I Wrote:

Like, as in finished? Because otherwise it would be this, right?

I wrote delivery instructions for a food order earlier today. Can't have done it very well because the driver still got confused and had to call me.

In terms of Things with Titles that are Complete™️, then an original folktale called.... fuck, what did I call it? I can't remember. It's about an unnamed protagonist and a boatman though. Still waiting on my rejection emails from the magazines I've submitted it to 😂

Currently Writing:

Let's skip over the arseholiness of me saying that I'm currently writing this again, shall we? (Let's not turtles-all-the-way-down my mentioning it either.)

Okay. Here we go:-

rose-petal compliments: dramione. Quiet luxury, Hermione is wealthy. Set in the Muggle world.

sacreligious inferences of a midnight paradise: dramione. Trope soup. Marriage law/fake dating/date or die. (Plus a bunch more tropes because why not?)

The Absolute and Total Defeat of One Draco Malfoy. Multi-ship. Crack. Crack from crest to cunt.

What's Owed When. Dramione. Unexpected Pregnancy. France. Delectomancy. Draco pines so hard he's basically a forest.

foil&fall. Tansy (Teddy Lupin/Pansy Parkinson). Fluff. Epistolary.

Untitled warfic. Dramione. My attempt at All Plot, No Vibes. Yes, you read that right. I'm trying to write something with NO VIBES ALL PLOT. (Draw a pentagram and sage for me, I bloody need it.)

The Environmental Suicide Club. Original YA speculative fiction. This is the one Skam and Beadie are from. Grief. Environmentalism. Nihilism. Set one generation in the future. Everyone dies at the end. A Fun, Very Good Time! Completely unmarketable! Wheeee!

Untitled socmed. Theomione. Writing this one with @they-call-me-megs A bunch of fun and one we return to when we're struggling for inspiration elsewhere.

Aster, the Star-Sailor. Original children's series. Sci-fi, pirate adventure. Came from writing the Tansy and I fell in love with it. Thanks, Pansy.

Fate and Free Will series. Urban fantasy six-book series. Currently undertaking a massive rework of the structure.

wander/wonder. A Luna Lovegood POV story Christmas visual novel. Story is written and am hoping I can finish the video in time for December.

There are a few more but these are the ones I work on a least a little bit every week.

Tagging @they-call-me-megs @thusatlas @paandreablack